The 365 · Verses · Day 137 · Knowledge
You knew nothing. Every word you can speak was gift.
Qur'an Quran 16:78
وَٱللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَـٰتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْـًٔا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَـٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ ۙ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ
“It is God who brought you out of your mothers' wombs knowing nothing, and gave you hearing and sight and minds, so that you might be thankful. (Abdel Haleem)”
Svenska: Gud förde er ut ur era mödrars sköten, ovetande om allt, och gav er hörsel, syn och hjärta; kanske känner ni tacksamhet [mot Honom]. (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathīr cites the foundational hadith qudsī of the believer's near-ness through ʿibādah (Bukhārī 6502): when the believer draws near to Allah through obligatory and supererogatory acts, Allah becomes 'his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes, his foot with which he walks.'
In the language
Lā taʿlamūna shayʾā (you knew nothing) is structurally absolute. As-samʿ is singular; al-abṣār is plural; al-afʾidah is plural. Hearing is one (it does not vary), but sights and hearts vary across observers and reflectors.
Why this verse
Q 16:78 names the structural starting point of every human life: born knowing nothing (lā taʿlamūna shayʾā). The verse names the three faculties Allah gave: hearing (samʿ), sight (abṣār), and hearts/minds (afʾidah). The structural ordering: hearing first (foundation of language and learning), sight second (gateway to observation), afʾidah third (integrative faculty). The verse closes: la˻allakum tashkurūn (so that you might be thankful).
Bring it into today
The verse is a structural anti-arrogance reminder. Modern educational achievement produces the structural temptation of pride-in-knowledge. Q 16:78: you knew nothing. Every word you can speak, every concept you grasp, every skill you have was gift.
A reflection to carry
The verse names hearing, sight, hearts as the structural channels through which Allah brings the human from the lā-taʿlamūn state to the ʿālim-state. The hadith qudsī of the qurb completes the picture: the same faculties become Allah's instruments in the believer's life when used in obedience.
Read the longer reflection
Modern education produces the temptation to attribute knowledge-acquisition to human capacity. Q 16:78 inverts: you began knowing nothing, the faculties were given to you, the inputs were not generated by you. The classical scholars used this verse as the structural Quranic foundation for the believer's epistemological humility: not skepticism (the modern post-skeptical position) but humility (the believer's pre-skeptical position).
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
A verse, a healing, and a Sunnah, every morning.
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